Campus Youth Perspectives

Propaganda for Israel vs. Educating for Israel

By Lonny Moses

In this article, Lonny Moses, the youth leadership coordinator for Habonim Dror North America, explores different modes of Israel education and activism and questions the opportunities given to Jewish youth. › More Info

Young Progressives to Make Group Aliyah

Defying the image of American aliyah as reserved for the politically conservative, a group of 12 liberal young Jews from the Habonim Dror North America movement will move to Israel this September to form an urban kibbutz. › More Info

BDS at Berkley; an Eyewitness View

By Simone Zimmerman

You’ve heard the other panelists discuss the merits of BDS and whether it’s effective. I recognize that BDS seeks to address serious human rights issues in Israel and the Territories. › More Info

Exclude Me At Your Own Peril

By Abby Backer

As the daughter of a rabbi, I was always taught that temple was a home for all Jews, a place that embraced debate, argument and difference. Yet after attending a recent debate at Temple Beth El in Stamford, Conn., between acclaimed legal scholar Alan Dershowitz and J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, I was forced to reconsider that notion. I had never felt so much... › More Info

Kibbutz Galuyot? I’d rather have Kibbutz Mish’ol

By Anton Marks

Rising above all the noise declaring the death of the Kibbutz - this article, not only, highlights the new kibbutz movement but also how that movement is working to improve all of Israel › More Info

Some Thoughts on March of the Living and Israel

By Mira Sucharov

Mira Sucharov shares her reflections on March of the Living, and warns of the potentially problematic linkage the trip creates, whether intentionally or not, between the Holocaust and contemporary Israel. › More Info

To Inspire and Require

By Shawn Guttman

Guttman discusses the inspiration Habonim Dror provides and the responsibilities of members today. › More Info

Upon receiving the Ameinu Dreamers and Builders Award 2009

By Rabbi Esther Lederman

Rabbi Esther Lederman was one of three awardees of the Ameinu Dreamers and Builders Award in 2009. Presented here are the heart-warming and inspiring words she presented as she accepted the award. › More Info

Loyalty & Principles

By Mira Sucharov

As Israel Apartheid week unfurls across the globe, Mira Sucharov explores the tug-of-war between loyalty and principles. › More Info

Of Two Minds: Gaza gives One American and Israeli Citizen Pause

By Timna Axel

An American/Israeli at Northwestern University -shares her thoughts and her concerns, about the recent Gaza military operation in specific and the role of American Jews when it comes to loving criticism of Israel in general. › More Info

Habonim Hooked Me - I Felt Alive

By Alisa Belinkoff Katz

I started going to Habonim Camp when I was ten years old. From the minute I went, I was hooked.... Habonim had me hooked because I felt so truly alive there. › More Info

Building Hope in the City

By from the Baltimore Jewish Times

With over 2 million dollars raised an effort called "The Baltimore Model" has brought new homes and new hope to Oliver, Baltimore, but not without hands on help from Habonim Dror. Get the whole story here. › More Info

Cross-Cultural Environmental Studies in Israel

By Rabbi Michael Cohen

If you are looking for a different kind of study abroad experience that combines environmental studies, a cross-culture experience, the Middle East, kibbutz and desert living then the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is the program for you.

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Rebuilding Israel’s Utopia

By James Horrox

Fifty years after Martin Buber joyfully dubbed the kibbutz “an experiment that did not fail,” many observers of Israeli politics argue that it most certainly did. › More Info

Jewish Camping, Habonim Dror Style

By Shelly Goldwater

Eagerly anticipating my ninth summer as executive director of Habonim-Dror Camp Tavor, I like to take a step back look at the big picture. And the big picture is: I’m more and more convinced of the crucial importance of what Jewish camps offer. › More Info

Students: Union of Progressive Zionists National Conference--Feb 8 - 10, Boston--Building a Sustainable Campus Movement

By Tamara (Tammy) Shapiro

Find out how to participate in this year's UPZ national conference to build a progressive Zionist movement on your campus. › More Info

Labor Zionist ideals live on at Habonim Camp Gilboa

By Julie Gruenbaum Fax

In this very cynical world, we're a camp that teaches hope and idealism and making the world a better place. › More Info

Habonim: the Zionist club that became a factory for creativity

By Jonathan Brown

From Sacha Baron Cohen to Seth Rogen, the Habonim movement has produced a raft of top performers. › More Info

International Conference: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Pathways to Peace

By Moises F. Salinas

The conference goal is to highlight the contribution that social scientific and humanistic scholarship can bring towards conflict resolution, peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. › More Info

We must teach about Israel -- warts and all

By Daniel Sokatch

We need to embrace the notion that tokheha, loving rebuke, is both profoundly patriotic and Jewish. › More Info

How Academics Can Counter the British Academic Boycott

By Jeffry V. Mallow, Phd.

To best counter the British boycott of Israeli academics, American teachers can simply affiliate themselves with one of the Israeli universities. › More Info

The Flawed Strategy of ‘Don't Hate, Celebrate’

By Tamara (Tammy) Shapiro

This strategy offers nothing in between being unconditionally pro-Israel and anti-Zionist. › More Info

Academics: Sign the Mission Statement of JANIP: The Jewish Academic Network for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

By JANIP

JANIP is being created to bring together academics who reject the increasingly polarized debate surrounding the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. › More Info

How Zionism Was Hijacked by the Right

By Moises F. Salinas

Speak out for a renewed movement to realize the humanistic ideals of the original Zionism › More Info

Why Jewish High School Students Don't Learn About Israel

By Zach Luck

"The organized Jewish community believes the best education about Israel consists in uncomplicated, beautiful images of the country." › More Info

A Response to Jonathan Tobin

By Gil Browdy

This article raises interesting questions, but not the questions the author himself poses, but rather questions related to the nature of the author’s critique. › More Info

Progressive Jews who care about Israel need to make our voices heard on campus

By Christopher MacDonald-Dennis, Ed.D.

Too often, the rhetoric around Israel and Palestine on campus is polemical, rigid and one-sided. The advocates for each side generally do not think about the legitimate national rights of the other community. We throw facts at each other to demonstrate that the other side is wrong and does not have legitimacy. In this heated debate, many progressive Jews who do not see a contradiction in being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine have been silent. We are frustrated by both sides and are often mischaracterized by both. The pro-Palestinian side sees us as apologists for Israel while the pro-Israel side tells us that hate ourselves and that we are putting Israel in harm’s way. Though we may defend Israel to some, we often do not speak against the Occupation or the ways in which the Israeli government miss opportunities for peace because we see Israel under attack.

It is time for us to find our voice and stop being silent.

If anything has forced me to find my voice, it is the recent controversy around the Union of Progressive Zionists and the Israel on Campus Coalition. We have much to celebrate this week as the Israel on Campus Coalition chose not to throw out the Union of Progressive Zionists at the urging of the right-wing group, Zionist Organization of America for bringing the group Breaking the Silence. However, as progressive Jews who support Israel, whether we identity as Zionists or not, we should be afraid that our voice is being silenced in our own community.

It is time for us to take back the term “pro-Israel” from groups such as AIPAC and ZOA. We need to name those groups for what they are: pro-Likkud or pro-rightist. As an academic, I welcome their voices at the table and will certainly entertain their ideas. However, they have silenced alternatives voices from the Left who care deeply about Israel. Many will state that they challenge voices that are critical of Israel but we all know that these groups have challenged Left-wing governments of Israel and have not supported the actions of Israel as it pursues peace. Thus, they too challenge the Jewish state. So do we, but for different reasons. We care about security and justice for both Israel and Palestine. It is time that we break the silence that being pro-Israel means following a certain political line and means we cannot challenge Israel on the occupation or its treatment of its Arab citizens. It is time for us to make our voices heard.
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MK Ophir Pines-Paz Visits

By St Louis Hillel Staff

MK Ophir Pines-Paz recently
made headlines in Israel by resigning
from the Israeli cabinet to
protest the appointment of
Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael
Beiteinu party to the post of Minister
of Strategic Threats. In resigning,
he also announced his
candidacy for the Labor party
leadership. Pines-Paz made campus
appearances at New York
University (NYU) and Washington
University in St. Louis. At
Washington University, an open
lecture was co-sponsored by the
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
Department, the Schusterman
Visiting Professorship/American-
Israeli Cooperative Enterprise,
and the Political Science Department,
providing a broad opportunity
for students and faculty to
hear the guest lecturer. At separate
events at the university, MK
Pines-Paz met with university and
Jewish communal leaders as well.
“This was a remarkable opportunity
to engage with a leading
Israeli politician of the caliber of
MK Ophir Pines-Paz and we are › More Info

Breaking the Silence

By Tammy Shapiro

What distinguishes the Union of Progressive Zionists from other campus organizations? Some might argue it is our politics, but I believe it is much more. The UPZ is sponsored by four Progressive Zionist organizations who have a long history of Zionist activity within Israel and abroad. Many UPZ students come from two of the oldest Zionist youth movements, who are not only partly responsible for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, not only built Kibbutzim in Israel beginning from the turn of the century, not only run the longest continual year long Israel program for college aged North Americans, but also currently send garinim to Israel to continue this legacy. Our students are well versed in Zionist history, their own personal and familial stories. Our students are not simply concerned about being pro-Israel, but are concerned Zionists who love Israel. Therefore they care about what kind of Zion we as the Jewish community around the world are supporting and creating.
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It Is Time to Complicate the Narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on Campus

By Christopher MacDonald-Dennis, Ed.D.

As a diversity educator working on a college campus, I have often been frustrated at the narrative around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in American higher education. Undergraduate students at institutions of higher education in the United States are often challenged to understand the the ways in which certain groups are privileged and some are discriminated against. In this work, there is often not a nuanced understanding of oppression. Targeted groups are the “victims” who are oppressed and have no power; agents are those with power and are the oppressor. › More Info

Dancing with Youngsters

By Yona Prital

On the eve of the thirty-fifth Zionist Congress, Zionists Youth Movements are very much alive, kicking and debating.
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UPZ BIRTHRIGHT WINTER 2006 | Peace, Pluralism and Social Justice

By UPZ Staff

The UPZ Birthright Program offered a wide spectrum of topics, speakers and outings that inspired the participants to not only experience the beauty of Israel and its people, but also grapple with the challenges facing Israel, and the Jewish people as a whole. › More Info

Visions for a Progressive Israel

By UPZ Staff

This September 16-18 the Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ) ? a not-for-profit student organization advocating across North American campuses for peace and social justice in Israel/Palestine ? launched its 2005-2006 year of activism at its second annual student leadership conference entitled: ?Visions for a Progressive Israel.? One hundred activists from across the United States and Canada convened for the weekend at the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Reisterstown, MD, where they learned from some of the most prominent figures in Israeli and Palestinian peace activism, and formulated regional and national campaigns to further the UPZ?s goal of promoting peaceful, nuanced, civil and inclusive dialogue on campus regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Reflections on Habonim

By Carolyn Amacher

For most adults of "my generation," listening to the Doors, playing pick up basketball and eating Twinkies is enough to invoke the warm and fuzzy memories of our childhood. This nostalgia makes us feel safe and therefore nurtured, which is meaningful - and enough - for most. For most Jews it's enough to visit our old campsites, to consort with our old "chevre" and to sing our old camp songs in order to invoke the zeal of our youth. I recently heard a friend chronicle the experience of visiting her old camp as if it was an archeological expedition. She was jubilant just to have seen the murals, traverse the old camp road and smell the pine trees. It was enough.
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What?s Happening at Columbia? UPZ Acts for Open Discussion

By Ralph Seliger

One hundred students, faculty, journalists and other interested parties gathered at Columbia University, on the night of Feb. 3, to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ?call to dialogue? event came at a time when the university has been roiled in controversy over how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has impacted upon academic freedom. The volatile atmosphere at Columbia came to the fore with the sudden cancellation of a conference on the prospects of negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, organized by the Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR). There were different reports in the media as to the reasons for the cancellation, but the one most troubling to Jewish students was Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon?s announcement that he was boycotting the conference, due to what he understood to be anti-Israel sentiments at Columbia. › More Info

Jewish Clergy Students Grapple with Middle East Conflict

By UPZ Staff

Recently a dozen rabbinical and cantorial students gathered in New York City?s Beit Shalom offices for a day of information and skill-based workshops on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These future leaders of the American Jewish community are wrestling with the question of how to engage in dialogue on Israel once they stand in front of a congregation. › More Info

Israeli Student Activists visit the Northeast

By UPZ Staff

Amidst the various activities executed during the UPZ Spring Week of Action, the focal point was a delegation of Israeli students/Labor activists touring Northeast campuses. Handpicked by MK Colette Avital, these six Israelis ? all of whom are active with the Labor Party in their respective municipalities, and three of whom work, or have worked, as parliamentary aids to Labor members such as Matan Vilnai, Amram Mitzna and Ehud Barak ? came well prepared to speak on Israel, the conflict, and the fragile status of the Labor Party in the weeks before disengagement. What they were not as prepared for, was the level of awareness, interest and passion embodied by the American Jewish campus community that is affiliated with the UPZ. › More Info

?Call to Dialogue? at Columbia University

By UPZ Staff

One hundred students, faculty, journalists and other interested parties gathered at Columbia University Thursday night to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ) brought Israeli Member of Parliament Avshalom Vilan and Palestinian Authority adviser Amjad Atallah to speak (transcriptions of their presentation available) to a classroom filled with Muslim and Jewish students. › More Info

UPZ Forms, Holds Inaugural Conference

By UPZ Staff

Newark, New Jersey. The Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ) concluded its three-day inaugural conference on Sunday October 17th with the launch of a national support network to promote campus activism for a "third way" solution to the › More Info

Dr Naomi Chazan Speaks to the UPZ

By Dr Naomi Chazan

I actually had a different lecture prepared, but when I heard that Yasser Abed Rabbo was here, there was no reason for me to talk about the Palestinian side, and that is one of the main messages that I have to transmit this evening.
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By Alex Sharone

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